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This study aims to investigate the role of information and communication technology (ICT) in modulating the effect of governance on insurance penetration in 42 Sub-Saharan African countries using data for the period 2004-2014.

Two insurance indicators are used in the analysis, namely, life insurance and non-life insurance. The three ICT modulating dynamics used include mobile phone penetration, internet penetration and fixed broadband subscriptions. Six governance channels are also considered, namely, political stability, “voice & accountability”, regulation quality, government effectiveness, the rule of law and corruption-control. The empirical evidence is based on generalized method of moments.

The following main findings are established. First, mobile phone penetration does not significantly modulate governance channels to positively affect life insurance while it effectively complements “voice & accountability” to induce a positive net effect on non-life insurance. Second, internet penetration complements governance dynamics of political stability, government effectiveness and rule of law to induce positive net effects on life insurance and corruption-control for an overall positive effect on non-life insurance. Third, the relevance of fixed broadband subscriptions in promoting life insurance is apparent via governance channels of regulation quality, government effectiveness and the rule of law while fixed broadband subscriptions do not induce significant overall net effects on non-life insurance though the conditional effects are overwhelmingly significant.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, studies on the relevance of ICT in promoting insurance consumption through governance channels are sparse, especially for a region such as Sub-Saharan Africa where insurance penetration is low compared to other regions of the world.

The purpose of this study is to assess how inclusive education affects inclusive economic participation through the financial access channel.

The focus is on 42 sub-Saharan African countries with data for the period 2004-2014. The empirical evidence is based on the generalised method of moments.

The following findings are established. First, inclusive secondary education moderates financial access to exert a positive net effect on female labour force participation. Second, inclusive “primary and secondary school education” and inclusive tertiary education modulate financial access for a negative net effect on female unemployment. Third, inclusive secondary education and inclusive tertiary education both moderate financial access for an overall positive net effect on female employment. To provide more gender macroeconomic management policy options, inclusive education thresholds for complementary policies are provided and discussed.

Policy implications are discussed in the light of challenges of economic development in the sub-region and sustainable development goals.

This study aims to assess the role of income levels (low and middle) in modulating governance (political and economic) to influence inclusive human development.

The empirical evidence is based on interactive quantile regressions and 49 countries in sub-Saharan Africa for the period 2000-2002.

The following main findings are established. Firstly, low income modulates governance (economic and political) to positively affect inclusive human development exclusively in countries with above-median levels of inclusive human development. It follows that countries with averagely higher levels of inclusive human development are more likely to benefit from the relevance of income levels in influencing governance for inclusive development. Secondly, the importance of middle income in modulating political governance to positively affect inclusive human development is apparent exclusively in the median while the relevance of middle income in moderating economic governance to positively influence inclusive human development is significantly apparent in the 10th and 75th quantiles. Thirdly, regardless of panels, income levels modulate economic governance to affect inclusive human development at a higher magnitude, compared to political governance. Policy implications are discussed in light of the post-2015 agenda of sustainable development goals and contemporary development paradigms.

This study complements the extant sparse literature on inclusive human development in Africa.

In this study, we test the so-called “Quiet Life Hypothesis” (QLH), which postulates that banks with market power are less efficient.

We employ instrumental variable Ordinary Least Squares, Fixed Effects, Tobit and Logistic regressions. The empirical evidence is based on a panel of 162 banks consisting of 42 African countries for the period 2001–2011. There is a two-step analytical procedure. First, we estimate Lerner indices and cost efficiency scores. Then, we regress cost efficiency scores on Lerner indices contingent on bank characteristics, market features and the unobserved heterogeneity.

The empirical evidence does not support the QLH because market power is positively associated with cost efficiency.

Owing to data availability constraints, this is one of the few studies to test the QLH in African banking.

The aim of this paper is to assess the impact of China’s trade agreement and foreign direct investment (FDI) flows to Nigeria with special reference to the manufacturing sector utilizing the following key economic performance indicators: inflation, unemployment, income and gross domestic product, to name a few. Since the turn of the millennium, China has enjoyed a substantial presence in the African continent. In fact, the country has signed bilateral agreements with Angola, South Africa and Sudan to name a few. Recently, China established its West African trade hub in Lagos, the economic capital of Nigeria, to be strategically positioned. The results of the study revealed conclusively that although China’s investments over the years have benefited the Nigerian economy and its various firms in the manufacturing sector, the agreement signed by both countries ultimately needs to be reexamined to ensure equity.

To thoroughly analyze the effects of China’s investments in Nigeria, this study was carried out in two phases. The first analysis of this study is anchored on a “before/after” framework based on descriptive statistical analysis of the selected economic performance indicators chosen from selected cross-national data. Accordingly, the time frame for this study runs from 1993-2012 which roughly corresponds to the era when China commenced significant investments in Nigeria. Second, employees, policymakers and individuals in the manufacturing/textile industries were interviewed. Furthermore, participation from federal as well as local government agency staff members was solicited using the Delphi technique.

Empirically, the results conclusively reveal China’s dominance in the manufacturing and textile sectors in Nigeria. In other words, at face value, China’s investments are ultimately good for the Nigerian economy. However, at a micro-level analysis, the researcher examined the human factor, that is, the families of former and current employees, abandoned businesses/factories and a decaying textile industry that was once vibrant.

To the knowledge of the researcher, this is the first study attempting to assess the impact of the rise of China on the Nigerian economy by combining key economic performance indicator in tandem with face-to-face interviews and the Delphi technique.

The growing volume of trade misinvoicing in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) calls for serious concern, particularly given its effect on macroeconomic fundamentals. Despite the growing body of literature on the growth effect of trade misinvoicing, empirical evidence on the role of governance in moderating the effect is quite scarce, particularly for SSA. The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into the growth effect of trade misinvoicing in SSA as well as the moderating role of governance in this regard.

The feasible generalised least square estimator was applied to analyse relevant data, spanning 2009–2018, of 35 SSA countries. Governance indicators were classified into economic, political and institutional governance, and their individual role in moderating the nexus between trade misinvoicing and economic growth was explored.

This paper showed the presence of cross-sectional dependence among SSA countries and long-run convergence of the estimated variables. The empirical finding showed that trade misinvoicing has a negative growth effect in the selected SSA countries, but both economic and political governance are crucial in lowering the observed negative growth effect.

To curtail trade misinvoicing, SSA policymakers should go beyond just designing anti-money laundering policies to effectively implementing the policies for improved growth prospects. More so, the government of each SSA country must devise means of strengthening governance and building effective, accountable and transparent institutional frameworks that will constantly check and discourage trade misinvoicing activities.

The originality of this paper stems from its novel assessment of the role governance plays in moderating the growth effect of trade misinvoicing in SSA using the feasible generalised least square estimator. It also details the strategies needed to effectively tackle trade misinvoicing.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview and some recent advances in the models, analysis and simulation of thermal transport of phonons as related to the field of microscale/macroscale heat conduction in solids. The efforts focus upon a fairly comprehensive overview of the subject matter from a unified standpoint highlighting the various approximations inherent in the thermal models. Subsequently, the numerical formulations and illustrations using the current state-of-the-art are provided.

This paper is dedicated to the approximate solution to the relaxation time phonon Boltzmann equation (BE). While original contributions are pointed out and addressed appropriately, the efforts and contributions will be focussed on a relatively complete overview highlighting the field from one unified standpoint and clearly stating all assumptions that go into the approximations inherent to existing models. The contents will be divided as follows: In the first section the authors will give an overview of semi-classical phonon transport physics. Then the authors will discuss the equation of phonon radiative transport (EPRT) and its approximations—the ballistic-diffusive approximation (BDA) and the new heat equation (NHE). Next the authors derive and discuss the C-F model. A numerical discretization method valid for all models is then presented followed by results to numerical simulations and discussion.

From a unified treatment based on the introduction of an energy distribution function, the authors have derived the EPRT and its two well-known approximations: BDA and NHE. For completeness and to provide a vehicle for a general numerical discretization approach, the authors have also included analysis of the C-F model and the parabolic and hyperbolic descriptions of heat transfer along with it. The approximation of angular dependence of phonons in radiation-like descriptions of transport has been given special attention. The assumption of isotropy was found to be of paramount importance in the formulation of position space models for phononic thermal transport. For the thin film problem considered here, the NHE along with the proper boundary condition appears to be the best choice to approximate the phonon BE. Not only does it provide predictions that are in excellent agreement with EPRT, it does not require the discretization of phase space making it far more computationally efficient.

The authors hope this work will help dispel the idea that since Fourier’s law describes diffusion (under limiting assumptions) and it has shown to be ineffective in describing heat transfer for very thin films, that diffusion cannot describe heat transfer in thin films and one should look to a radiative description instead. If one considers diffusion in the sense of random motion, as invisaged by the original builders of the subject (Smoluchowski, Einstein, Ornstein et al.), instead of a temperature gradient, the idea that diffusion can govern thermal transport at this scale is not surprising. Indeed, the NHE is essentially a diffusion equation that describes the motion of particles up to the point of true randomness (isotropy) as well as thereafter.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the thermo-gravitational convective state of a non-Fourier fluid layer of the single-phase-lagging type, heated from below. Unlike existing methodologies, the spectral modes are not imposed arbitrarily. They are systematically identified by expanding the spectral coefficients in terms of the relative departure in the post-critical Rayleigh number (perturbation parameter). The number and type of modes is determined to each order in the expansion. Non-Fourier effects become important whenever the relaxation time (delay in the response of the heat flux with respect to the temperature gradient) is of the same order of magnitude as process time.

In the spectral method the flow and temperature fields are expanded periodically along the layer and orthonormal shape functions are used in the transverse direction. A perturbation approach is developed to solve the nonlinear spectral system in the post-critical range.

The Nusselt number increases with non-Fourier effect as suggested in experiments in microscale and nanofluid convection.

Unlike existing nonlinear formulations for RB thermal convection, the present combined spectral-perturbation approach provides a systematic method for mode selection.

The purpose of this paper is to critically examine the multinational oil companies’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives in Nigeria. Its special focus is to investigate the impact of the global memorandum of understanding (GMoU) on women involved in offshore and inshore fisheries entrepreneurship in the coastal communities of the Niger Delta region.

This paper adopts a survey research technique, aimed at gathering information from a representative sample of the population, as it is essentially cross-sectional, describing and interpreting the current situation. A total 800 respondents were sampled across the coastal communities of the Niger Delta region.

The results from the use of a combined propensity score matching and logit model indicate that the GMoU model is gender insensitive, as extensive inequality restrains fisherwomen’s participation in the offshore and inshore fisheries entrepreneurship, often due to societal norms and customs that greatly frustrate women’s development in fisheries.

This implies that if fisherwomen continue in this unfavourable position, their reliance on menfolk would remain while trying to access financial support and decision-making regarding fisheries entrepreneurship development.

The inshore and offshore fisheries entrepreneurship development can only succeed if cluster development boards of GMoUs are able to draw all the resources and talents and if fisherwomen are able to participate fully in the GMoUs intervention plans and programme.

This research contributes to the gender debate in fisheries entrepreneurship development from a CSR perspective in developing countries and rationale for demands for social projects by host communities. It concludes that business has an obligation to help in solving problems of public concern, and that CSR priorities in Sub-Saharan Africa should be aimed towards addressing the peculiarity of the socio-economic development challenges of the countries and be informed by socio-cultural influences.

Tourism development is critical for economic transformation, particularly in emerging economies. However, the growing spate of terrorism dissuades international tourists, reduces tourism receipts and ultimately hampers the tourism sector's performance. Thus, the government intervenes by altering its military spending to curtail terrorism. Against this backdrop, this study examines the moderating role of military spending in the terrorism–tourism nexus in Nigeria.

The study employs the dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS) to investigate the moderating role of military spending in the terrorism–tourism nexus in Nigeria. The authors employ the data that cover the period 1995Q1–2019Q4.

The results reveal that terrorism has a catastrophic effect on tourism arrivals in Nigeria while military spending has a positive impact on tourism arrivals. The results further show the moderating role of military spending in the terrorism–tourism nexus is positive and statistically significant. However, the findings are subject to the measures of military spending, terrorism and tourism.

The practical implication of the findings is the need for deliberate and strategic budgeting for the Ministry of Defence to combat terrorism, which should not only focus on the procurement of arms and ammunition but also cover the welfare of the military personnel. Nigeria also needs to formulate and implement necessary tourism policies aimed at countering terrorism in a bid to create and maintain a positive image on the global tourist map.

Many studies, particularly in developing countries like Nigeria, had examined the effect of terrorism on tourism but none has examined the moderating role of military spending in the terrorism–tourism nexus. Hence, this study examines the moderating role of military spending in the relationship between terrorism and tourism in Nigeria, a terrorism-prone country with several tourist sites.